Unfinished Hero 01 Knight Read Online Free Page B

to my shoes and up.
    And when his eyes caught mine again, his face was no different. Hard jaw, angry eyes, pissed but not at me.
    But his voice was soft when he said, “I won’t hurt you.”
    “I’d really like to take a taxi,” I whispered.
    Swift and almost imperceptibly but I caught it and he meant me to, his eyes dropped to my feet then came back to mine.
    “Taxi won’t be a hit?” he asked, still soft, and I knew that he knew from what he saw of me that paying for a taxi would be a hit for me.
    I straightened my spine, dropped my hand and assured him, “I’ll be fine.”
    The elevator doors opened and without taking his eyes from me, he lifted his hand to catch one so it wouldn’t close and he spoke. “I’ll take you home. Safe. You’ll have no problems from me. Just a ride. And you’re doin’ me a favor, givin’ me a chance to calm my shit. But swear to Christ, you can trust me.”
    “I don’t –”
    “Babe, swear to Christ, I’m just a ride. Take advantage. And do me a favor and give me an excuse to get outta here.”
    I saw his anger now. I remembered what I felt when he walked into the apartment earlier. And it was fresh in my mind all that had just happened to me at his hand. None of it hurt me but all of it was bizarre in a dangerous, scary way that demonstrated irrefutably that I should know better than to court further time and attention from this man.
    And still, I found my head tipping down so I could look at my feet. Feet that were walking me toward the elevator.
    Knight shifted his arm high and I ducked under it to enter and he entered after me.
    The doors started closing as he tagged the button B2.
    I stared at the doors.
    Yes. Sheer lunacy.
    “You’re called?”
    My neck twisted and my eyes moved up to his to see his looking at down me.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Name, babe.”
    “Anya.”
    He stared at me.
    Then he asked, “Anya?”
    “Anya,” I confirmed.
    “Anya,” he repeated and I nodded. “And you think my name’s unusual?”
    “Yes, I’ve never met anyone named Knight,” I informed him.
    “And I’ve never met anyone named Anya,” he informed me. “What is that?”
    “What is what?”
    “Your name.”
    “It’s a family name. As in, my grandmother’s.”
    “Before that,” he stated.
    “It was her grandmother’s,” I shared.
    “And before that, ” he pushed then explained, “Origins.”
    “Russian,” I told him.
    “You’re Russian?” he asked.
    “My grandmother was,” I answered.
    “She grow up here?” he asked.
    “No, she grew up in St. Petersburg when it was called Leningrad. But she died here.”
    His head cocked slightly to the side but his face remained impassive. “Died?”
    I nodded. “Seventeen years ago.”
    “Babe, what are you? Twenty-three? Four?”
    “Seven.”
    His head righted. “Twenty-seven?” He sounded like he didn’t believe me.
    “Yes, twenty-seven.”
    He studied me but didn’t give anything away.
    Then he stated, “Still, she had to be young.”
    “Liver failure. She was Russian as in, from Russia. She drank vodka like it was water and that’s not a stereotype. That’s very real.”
    And it was. And she passed it down to my aunt, unfortunately.
    He looked to the doors, muttering, “That’s the fuckin’ truth.”
    I kept my eyes to his profile and asked, “Are you Russian?”
    The doors opened and his hand came to me, not to my upper arm this time, to my elbow and he propelled me out, answering, “Fuck no.”
    His answer was emphatic and therefore insulting since I was half Russian but I didn’t call him on this. I also wondered at his knowledge of the Russia vodka drinking habit but I didn’t ask about it. I simply walked with him through the brightly lit, cement underground parking garage.
    He took me to a sleek, shining, low-slung, gunmetal gray sports car the like I’d never seen. It was so clean, it was gleaming and it looked like it had been driven there direct the from the showroom floor. I had